Image Hosting

[tr1ckey66]

Hi Guys
Quick question: Now that Photobucket have started to charge for their site, what is everybody doing regards uploading pics to the site. The obvious thing is to use Scale-Models' own uploader, but does anyone have an alternative? if like me, you'd like one place to post images in a variety of places what alternatives have members used? If you do use the fee based Photobucket what's it like? Things like adsetc (which drove me insane with the free version).

Anyone used Smugmug?

Cheers
P

[Guest]

I've got my own server for all of my photos I link to on the web. That way I can control every picture individually - and ensure they only disappear when I want to!
Whenever someone uses any of my pictures without my permission on their own website etc I can quickly replace that picture with something a bit more "obscene" - and trust me, they remove their link to my picture very quickly!
Quite hilarious to be honest... hehe... Had a guy trying to sue me for, with his words -"ruining his business" when I replaced all the pictures he'd stolen from me with a bunch of pictures of... erh... naked men having a jolly good time...

Since it's my server I can see every request there is and filter out the ones that aren't made by me. This is not possible on other services, or at least not easily available.

If you don't feel like hosting your own server you can setup a free Wordpress blog and just use it to host all of your pictures that you want to share on the web. This is a safe and free method and you still own the pictures. You can direct link to those images and it's simple.

You can also link to Facebook images but uploading pictures to Facebook is such a fail to begin with so I can't recommend that at all due to ownership issues.

Apart from this I don't know of any other free, and safe, ways of publishing pictures on forums unless you upload the picture on the forum itself, like in a post.
Wordpress is a good alternative and one that many haven't thought about!

[Gern]

I know I'm old fashioned, but what's wrong with keeping them on your own computer then uploading them onto whichever site you want?

[Guest]

I know I'm old fashioned, but what's wrong with keeping them on your own computer then uploading them onto whichever site you want?

You might not be able to remove them one day should you want to do so - and you might lose ownership to that image as soon as you've uploaded it?!
This forum is no such problem but in a broader perspective it's not a bad idea to host your content somewhere.

Also forums haven't allowed image uploads that long, and most of them have limits on sizes etc, so that feature tends to be rather basic.
It all depends on the needs one have.

I've got more than a 1000 pictures that I've posted throughout the years and I prefer to be in control of these, but if you only upload your model images here then I think it'd be overkill to get a hosting solution rather than just upload the picture with the post!

[Gern]

You might not be able to remove them one day should you want to do so - and you might lose ownership to that image as soon as you've uploaded it?!
This forum is no such problem but in a broader perspective it's not a bad idea to host your content somewhere.

Also forums haven't allowed image uploads that long, and most of them have limits on sizes etc, so that feature tends to be rather basic.
It all depends on the needs one have.

I've got more than a 1000 pictures that I've posted throughout the years and I prefer to be in control of these, but if you only upload your model images here then I think it'd be overkill to get a hosting solution rather than just upload the picture with the post!

Good points Jens. I'm no expert photographer and I've never taken a picture worth keeping, so the issue of ownership had never crossed my mind!

[R_G]

Anyone used Smugmug?

Cheers
P

I have a SmugMug account and it works really well, but it's not free. I use the basic plan and billed yearly it's about $40.00. I tried PhotoBucket for about a week before I went to SmugMug and it was a complete nightmare! SmugMug has a 14 day free trial so you can try it out. For $40.00 per year it's cheap photo hosting for an unlimited number of photos, and more importantly it's very dependable. I've never had an issue with them.

Ralph

[tr1ckey66]

Thanks for the feed back guys
Jens: I have contemplated my own server and I'm looking into this further. The Wordpress route is interesting.
Ralph: The SmugMug site looks really great and I think I may investigate that further, possibly do the trial. I already knew the service wasn't free but the plans look fairly reasonable and there is scope to upgrade the account (should you wish).
Dave: There's nothing wrong with uploading individually but as Jens points out you do lose any control over that image.

Thanks again everyone - I've much to ponder!

[PaulTRose]

I know I'm old fashioned, but what's wrong with keeping them on your own computer then uploading them onto whichever site you want?

cos when you post on multiple forums its easier to write out the post in Word, add the pic links then copy n paste into the threads on each of the foums

ive started using Uploadhouse.com since i no longer trust Tinypic since its a Photobucket offshoot

[stillp]

Flickr has been recommended on other forums.

Pete

[tr1ckey66]

Cheers guys
Never heard of Uploadhouse until now. Flickr I am familiar with and is another goos suggestion.
Cheers
P

[John]

Most ISP’s give you website/ftp space with your package, I think I get 50gb with Virgin, although I don’t use it, but why not use that? If you need to delete them you can.

[tr1ckey66]

True John, very true.
I'd completely forgotten about the ISP package. I'm with virgin too but to be honest I don't even use my virgin email address.
I guess what appeals with the paid sites is the user interface but I can live without that and I can do all my picture editing at home.
Good call John that had completely slipped by me.
Cheers
P

[Guest]

Though this is nowhere near as good as Jens, if I'm posting something that is not model related, I add a watermark. The top pic is overkill but the bottom one is more subtle

[ATTACH]286219[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]286220[/ATTACH]

[Thorbrand]

I use a site called cloudinary which is free and has easy upload functions (drag and drop) and an easy to use copy and paste image link. You get plenty of bandwidth and storage for free and it's unlikely you will use up the storage and bandwidth just posting your work on a model making website. I only use it for hosting my model making work. It's also pretty much free of advertising and annoying pop ups! which is always a bonus.